Tag Archives: narration

Early Christmas for Guerrilla Software

Yes, that happens. The moment that we hand someone an early Christmas. The fact that Guerrilla software is not Microsoft related and the fact that they inspired this idea made me want to give me the idea to them. In this it all started on November 9th when I saw something that woke up a spark of innovation. It got me to write ‘The Easy Lesson’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/11/09/the-easy-lesson/) and when I read the statement “Reports suggest that development on Vision Pro began in late 2015, and from that time until WWDC, Apple filed for over twenty thousand worldwide patents and spent about $130 billion on R&D.” I tasted a massive hint of negativity there. I forgot who wrote it, but the idea that innovation was slapped down because it costed a little (130 time a little) threw me off. I thought, what can I do to make it a stronger success. I get it that reporter was all about being cozy with the place where ‘free’ money is (aka Facebook) and I decided to counter that and here is the result, all freely available for Guerrilla software as well as Apple who could use a rather large win at this time. So here it is and have at it.

The idea
The idea is not a game but a visual exploration based on the game. You see, no matter how excellent the game is (and it is really good) true emersion is seen when you are in the middle of it all and as such Apple Vision Pro makes it’s introduction into the world. The idea is to use the setting of the game to show the vision holder on how immersive the Apple Vision Pro is. In this narration you are a traveller from somewhere else. You start in Mother’s Heart. It gives you a lesson in how the narrative works. You are an ‘inventor’ of the camera and as such you can set the stage. You can walk freely in Mother’s Heart see the people and interact with them. The game gives you tasks and that gets you credit coins. If you complete all tasks you get a red marker from an elder. The red marker lets you travel to another location. It also gives you a shelter. You get it randomly, but the shelter is in your name. If you do not have a shelter in that place you get a bunk in an inn or place (depends on where you are). So lets have a look at the locations.

  • Mother’s Heart
  • Freeheap
  • Sunstone rock
  • Meridian
  • Sunfall
  • Mainspring (option)
  • Ban-Ur (option)
  • Song’s edge
  • Longnotch
  • GreyCatch

Mothers Heart has one new location (still random), all others have 2-3 locations

When you are in your location you get tasks (of a sort). You are given a ride (mostly striders in first part) and the narration is set to your proving your camera. You are given an escort a son or daughter of Aloy. AshTone (Daughter) or BeeSneeze (Son). They will escort you so that the ride will ‘stay’ in the right place. Each location has rides out of town to locations where the machines are. They will have an old location to visit, machines to see and more of that. The important part is that this is not a game. You see the machines, but they are all docile. You will be able to photograph yourself with the machine in the background and you haven’t seen anything until you see yourself with a Thunderjaw or a Storm-bird in the background. It will be to get the good shots with machines or distinctive locations in the background. In this we could also enable to locations with a holograph in view and the views they had in the game. There will be the need to add a few hundred tasks in the game so that any location will have dozens of tasks but per ‘play day’ you only get 10. When 10 are completed, you get a red marker and in the first location (Mother’s heart) you get an assigned location, via a raffle bag, which will have stones. Each stoner is engraved and  signifies a location. At that point you will be able to travel to another location and start anew.

Each location will have a specific task, like only Mothers heart will have the option to see Devil’s Thirst. And each location should have a tall neck assignment. The idea is that the Tall neck and other large machines will show you these large machines through the Vision Pro making them seem a lot more impressive than on the PlayStation. All machines are docile and will not harm or attack you. There is however a setting with corrupted machines making the machines attack them on sight, the chance of that is a mere 1%, making it a rare setting. All these options make for playability and a long term entertainment setting. I wonder how long it will take for the Game map to be transferred to Vision Pro. And at this point I have enough setting to get Horizon Zero Dawn transferred including Frozen wastes. And in this the Forbidden West as well. I reckon that if this could be completed there would still be time until the third game is released. 

The towns should be near exact (wherever possible). Several ruins and old cities and each locations will have Chargers, Striders and Broadheads that can be ridden. As I see it, from the Mothers Heart (location one) Striders are used. From location 2 onwards Striders take you back and Chargers and Broadheads take you forward to another location. And after location 2, you can see the glyph on the machine to see where you will go. The locations you have already seen will be readable, the scribbled glyphs are indication that it is a new location and your focus hasn’t learned it yet. After the second location you will have 3-5 rides to chose from. And every 20 tasks after the first 10 give you an additional place to live and show off your created artwork. I have more on this, but that is for the eyes of Guerrilla only.

What I tried to envision is an original narrative with the locations all Horizon players loved and now a lot more ‘realistically’ seen through the Apple Vision Pro. As for the ‘creator’ aka ‘het Grobbekuiken’ Mathijs de Jonge. Hier is het idee, als je denkt dat het wat is, zie het als een ‘early Christmas present’, Veel plezier en een prettig uiteinde. 

Have a great day, it’s Friyay!

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Early days

This happens and I know it has happened to me as well. I see a path, I see a direction, but I am seeing it too early. You see, as I am learning more and more about a programs called Final Draft I see more and more potential there. Their YouTube step makes perfect sense. 66,000,000 active YouTubers and all needing direction and organisation in narration makes perfect sense and the fact that Final Draft wants to get a piece of that pie is logic. Yet for some time I have seen that Final Draft is also starting to become important in writing the narration of games. RPG especially but it is not confined to RPG. As gaming franchises evolves that connection merely strengthens. There is one problem, the numbers don’t support that move yet. As such a player like Final Draft might back off, correctly seeing the fact that it is still too early. Yet the larger station isn’t merely that they are too early, the optional station is that they are the only one available and as such the game makers need to see that Final Draft might be the only real solution.

So what is missing?
That is harder to explain. You see it isn’t merely the narration, it is keeping track of ALL the interactions that Final Draft is currently missing that becomes the centre axial in narration software. You think it is easy, but it is not. A prime example is Horizon: Zero Dawn and Horizon: Forbidden West. Now they have a new problem, the passing of Lance Reddick last year is leaving them with a gap, one that will be monumentally hard to fill. In addition Lance is one important reason that made the game great. So now they are looking at what could come net and now a program that shows all the interactions becomes a lot more important. 

This is not for all games and not for all options, but it is a strategic part that is not available anywhere. Consider A game like Assassins Creed. 2 and Brotherhood are all about Ezio, but what happens when another renaissance times game needs to come? Having the interactions would become essential. We can rely on other sources and that makes sense for now. But as franchises grow, as games make it past game 2 having clear records of these interactions become important. I reckon that there is another part I saw (optionally) missing is also applicable to gaming (but way beyond that stage). We need to see where we go next and that also implies that developers of resource materials (like Final Draft) need to see and scan a much larger stage of deployment. Gaming makes sense on several fronts, but not initially and not if the numbers don’t support it. Consider one game Hogwarts Legacy. You might think ’So what?’ What is important is that this game sold over 22,000,000 copies. They can make a second game in a different time (and that makes sense), but having the interaction stage will opt these developers to use Final Draft to keep track of all interactions and seek what would be required down the track. Yes, we can scan, we can ‘remember’ but in the end having a record is the best and that is where Final Draft could also shine. The larger stage becomes that gaming and Hollywood are more and more intertwining and as such there is a natural path for a player like Final Draft as it holds 95% of all scripting solutions. Yet this number changes when we consider that gaming crosses borders like no other and now that the Middle East and China is coming to play n this field as well gives us the light that another source of development materials is required for gaming developers and as such Final Draft is pretty much the only serious resource that needs to grow beyond what it currently has. It is natural to think that it doesn’t have to and that is fine. 

There is also the basic and natural thought for Final Draft to think ‘Why should we have to?’ and I get that. Yet consider that Final Draft is also presumptively responsible for a series like The Big Bang theory (12 seasons) and so many others. Now seeing all interactions in some display starts making sense. I am not talking about the Character Navigator. I am talking about a graphical display on a character and all the characters they interact with, with the added stage of two characters and where they interact. For some characters in 12 seasons it becomes important to light that up, but in gaming it becomes important to the narration stage. What characters did Kratos (God of War) interact with over 5 games. For a lot it is limited to one game, but that is also often because there was nothing to keep proper track of things. I reckon that the future of MMO and other RPG games will see a massive shift in streaming games, it becomes important. As such it might be early in some cases, in other cases a player like Final Draft can remain the only player in town, or relinquish the field for another player to grow a market segment. Final Draft has nothing to fear from any contender for a decade to come, but what after that? Microsoft was in the same stage. One source gives us “Windows has dropped to a historic low of 57.37% market share in the U.S. desktop OS market, a far cry from its all-time high of 92.37% back in January 2009” this was march last year. In less then 15 years it lost a marketshare of 35%. Now the circumstances are very different. But what the setting is in 10-15 years is unknown to me and most others. So a developer can head of the danger, or take a chance. For Final Draft it is unknown. I am not playing some fear card. The simple truth is that for games the numbers aren’t there yet and I would agree with that. What no one knows (and what is being silenced) is that a new player like Tencent Handheld also needs to grow and it will find the tools for all the games they need. Narration is the next big thing in gaming. Look at all; the games you know and optionally love. They ALL have narration. So how many of those have become franchises? Now wonder how important narration and proper recording of narration becomes if there is a part three in the making (or more). The bigger the franchise, the more important the narration becomes, that is a simple truth and lets face it. We all want to be ready for when the game becomes a success. Hogwarts Legacy is an example. It was the first game and it sold 22,000,000 making it the most successful game of 2023. So a second game is a natural thought. Where it goes from there is up for speculation. What is important that there is a gap and Final Draft is the natural choice for anyone taking narration serious. The other part I saw missing was time lines (I will let you figure that part out yourself). I shouldn’t do it all, should I?

Enjoy your day, my midweek is about to start.

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